Brent Learned
(Arapaho/Cheyenne)
Buffalo, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
18” x 14”
“When you lose the rhythm of the drumbeat of God, you are lost from the peace and rhythm of life.”
The buffalo was everything to the Plains Indians. The Plains Indian tribes survived on hunting all types of game, such as elk and antelope, but the buffalo was their main source of food. Every part of the buffalo was used and nothing went to waste. In addition to providing food, the Indians used the skins for tipis and clothing, and hides for robes, shields, and ropes. They used dried buffalo dung for fuel, made tools, such as horn spoons, scrapers from bone; sinew or muscle was used to make bowstrings, moccasins, and bags, and the hoofs were used to make glue.
Following the seasonal migration of the buffalo, the tipis that the Plains Indians lived in were ideal for their nomadic lifestyle. The buffalo had well over 100 uses. The Plains Indian would follow the buffalo and sometimes fight other tribes over hunting grounds. You only hunted when you needed food and you never hunted the Buffalo without a ceremony. Killing a buffalo without permission from the elders of the tribe would bring bad medicine onto the tribe and usually that person was exiled from the tribe.
Place of memory: how much the buffalo meant to the people on the plains; never forget what the buffalo meant to us, which was life.
Four Brothers, 2021
Acrylic on canvas
20” x 16”
“Take only what you need and leave the land as you found it.”
Four Brothers, is a painting about Cheyenne and Arapaho brothers being connected and how we must work together to preserve what we have for future generations. Growing up both Cheyenne and Arapaho, I was taught that we are here to preserve the land. We don’t own it, but we will pass it on to the next generation. The plants and animals are here for us to live with in harmony as well. We come from the dust and we go back to the dust, the cycle of life.
Place of memory is all around us; we have to listen to all living things as they will listen to us.
Brent Learned is an award-winning and collected Native American artist who was born and raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts.
Brent comes from a family in which art and appreciation of their culture was a large part of his everyday life. His father is a sculptor and his brother is a painter. Brent is an artist who draws, paints and sculpts with great detail. His appreciation for the heritage and culture of the Plains Indians is reflected in his artwork as he captures the essence, accuracy and historic authenticity of the Plains Indian way of life. Brent is typically known for his use of bold colors, textures and brush strokes that bring to life the Plains Indians in a contemporary impressionistic style.
Brent’s work resides in museums such as the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, The University of Kansas Art Museum in Lawrence, Kansas and the Cheyenne/Arapaho Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma. He also has work in private collections such as the Kerr Foundation and the Governor of Oklahoma’s Mansion in Oklahoma City.